The last time Virgin Group billionaire Sir Richard Branson was featured in the news, he was bromancing Barack Obama during the former president’s Caribbean holiday after leaving office.

Now, he is entertaining an entirely different (but arguably as destructive) visitor: Hurricane Irma.

Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, said he had no plans to evacuate his home in the British Virgin Islands, which lies directly in the path of Hurricane Irma.

Instead, Branson said he would hunker down with his team on Necker, his private Caribbean island, “as I have been on the three times we have had hurricanes over the past 30 years.”

“On Necker Island we have constructed really strong buildings (with hurricane blinds) that should be able to handle extreme weather pretty well, though with a Category 5 hurricane almost nothing can withstand it,” Branson wrote in a blog post, which also implied there would be no guests at his island’s private resort when the hurricane hits. “We had some lovely guests staying on Necker Island who have cut their trip short for safety reasons, and another group of guests have also postponed.”

Unfortunately, Branson’s Necker Island home experienced heavy damage, as has much of the region that has been hit by the Category 5 hurricane.

Richard Branson’s Necker Island home has been completely destroyed by Hurricane Irma.

And as of 1pm local time, his home on Necker Island was in directly in the eye of Hurricane Irma and the storm continued to batter the area for several hours.

His son Sam Branson took to Instagram to tell his followers that his father and his staff were safe.

Unlike liberal haters, we at Legal Insurrection take no joy in the destruction of anyone’s home and property. We will pray that the Bransons and all others impacted by Irma continue to stay safe and recover quickly as possible.

“Unlike liberal haters, we at Legal Insurrection take no joy in the destruction of anyone’s home and property.”

I live outside the US, and while I certainly take no “joy” in the destruction of Branson’s home, neither do I take any joy in the destruction of poor rural people here by multinational interests whose proxies drive those people from the land by terrorism and murder, in order that elites like Branson might obtain the resources for luxuries like space tourism. There’s a dark side to the glittering future that Branson and his ilk dangle in front of our First-World noses, and it’s part of my daily reality.

Yes, Branson does enjoy showboating, which is all well and fine … and if one is determined to be useless in a high-profile sort of way, I suppose this is a good way to do it.

Except that the problem with whooping it up on a nice low beachy island during a hurricane is that the whole thing can end up underwater for a while. Now of course in popular mythology Obama can make the seas recede, and Trump can end an eclipse just by squinting at it without glasses … but how long can Branson hold his breath?

We just moved to the Tampa area, and I wasn’t nervous until the latest round of models came out saying the brunt of the storm is going to go straight up the state. To me, Branson and his antics are celebrity showboating. A “Look at me, I’m rich, so I can hunker down and take it” kind of action. At the end of the day, he’ll have a private jet fly him back to Europe and let the peons deal with the cleanup and rebuild of his island.